Hasty to be Bismarck Superintendent

BISMARCK — The Bismarck School District has a new superintendent and it’s a familiar face. The Bismarck School Board met in closed session Thursday night and hired former Central administrator Chuck Hasty as the successor to Dr. Damon Gamble.

Hasty is the Assistant Superintendent in the De Soto School District. He has been at De Soto for the past eight years. Prior to that Hasty was the middle school principal at Central for two years and the high school principal for three years before that.

He said he applied for the superintendent position at Bismarck because he felt it was a good opportunity for him to give back to the school he attended as a child.

“I’m real excited to have this opportunity,” Hasty said. “I grew up in this area. This was an opportunity to come home. I’m looking forward to building new relationships and re-establishing old ones I have here.”

Hasty knows he has many challenges ahead of him including a declining enrollment problem that has plagued the district.

“I want to spend some time with the local civic leaders to discuss the state of affairs in Bismarck,” Hasty said. “I want to see what we can do to attract people to Bismarck.”

Hasty will officially take over as superintendent at Bismarck on July 1.

Gamble announced he would retire after the 2009-2010 school year in September. He has been superintendent at Bismarck for nine years.

He said the board had a difficult decision to make in choosing his successor.

“They had a good pool of candidates to choose from,” he said. “They all had different strengths. Chuck worked with my brother-in-law (Terry Noble) for several years. I feel very comfortable with the board’s decision.”

Gamble did not participate in the hiring process of the new superintendent. Nine applicants applied for the superintendent position at Bismarck.

Chris Cline is a reporter for the Daily Journal. Contact him at 573-431-2010, ext. 114 or at ccline@dailyjournalonline.com.